Pakistan High Commission New Delhi children harassed and intimidated by Indian agencies today

The officers, staff and more regrettably the families and children of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi continue to face intense harassment, intimidation and outright violence from the Indian state agencies. These have escalated exponentially in the last few days.

This deliberate bullying is not confined to a single isolated event, but continues unabated in a series of incidents, especially targeting the children of our officers and staff. Some of these events are:

a) On 7 & 8 March 2018, the children of the officers of the Mission were harassed while returning from school. Their cars were stopped by unknown persons who threatened the children and filmed them. The protest lodged by our High Commissioner with the Indian Foreign Secretary, instead of ameliorating the situation, was followed by further harassment of the officers of the High Commission, stoppage of provision of gas to the High Commission Residential Complex and threatening of contractors/staff working in the High Commission.

b) On 9 March 2018, the car of the Naval Adviser was aggressively chased. On the same day, Counselor Political was forcibly evicted from a cab and harassed by unknown persons, who used abusive language, threatened him and filmed the whole incident with impunity.

c) On 12 March, the technicians working at the Pakistan High Commission, New Delhi were threatened and stopped from working. The same evening our First Secretary was aggressively followed when he left work for his residence.

d) Today, the car carrying the school-going children of our Counselor, who were returning from school, was followed by unknown persons on cars and motorcycles harassed, intimidated and their vehicle was blocked. For psychological intimidation, videos and photographs of the children were constantly made for 40 minutes, leaving the children extremely traumatized. They were followed upto their residence.

e) Additionally, the drivers of the High Commission were forcibly halted and their mobile phones aggressively switched off to prevent them from contacting anyone.

All these incidents continue unabated despite repeated official protests lodged with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs at the highest level, providing specific details of the culprit's vehicles Our High Commission has also shared photographs identifying the individuals, who forcibly halted and took pictures of the officer, today.

The Indian Deputy High Commissioner Mr. J.P. Singh was summoned by Director General (South Asia & SAARC) Dr. Mohammad Faisal and a strong protest was lodged at the maltreatment being meted out to the officials and families of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. He emphasized that under the Vienna Convention, the safety and the security of Pakistani diplomats and their families is the responsibility of the Indian Government. The total apathy and failure of the Indian Government to put a halt to these despicable incidents, sparing not even young children, indicates both a lack of capacity to protect foreign diplomats posted in India or a more reprehensible, complicit unwillingness to do so.